Patients with nasopharyngeal cancer are often treated with drugs that activate their immune systems against the cancer. Until now it was feared that vaccination against Covid-19 could reduce the success of cancer treatment or lead to serious side effects. A recent study by the universities of Bonn and Shanxi in the People’s Republic of China now gives the green light to this. According to the study, the anticancer drugs actually worked better after vaccination with the Chinese vaccine SinoVac than in unvaccinated patients.
The results are published as a “Letter to the Editor” in the journal Annals of Oncologybut they are already available online.
Many cancer cells are capable of subverting the body’s immune response. They do this by pressing a kind of button on immune cells, the PD-1 receptor. In doing so, they effectively stopped these endogenous defense forces. Drugs can be used to block PD-1 receptors. This allows the immune system to fight the tumor more effectively.
Vaccination against Covid also stimulates the immune response, involving the PD-1 receptor. “There was concern that the vaccine might not be compatible with anti-PD-1 therapy,” says Dr. Jian Li from the Institute of Molecular Medicine and Experimental Immunology (IMMEI) at the University Hospital of Bonn. “This risk is especially true for nasopharyngeal cancer, which, like the SARS Cov-2 virus, affects the upper respiratory tract.”
Together with the cooperation partners of the People’s Republic of China, the bioinformatician has now examined whether this concern is justified. More than 1,500 patients treated in 23 hospitals across China participated in the analysis. These multicenter studies are considered particularly informative because the participants are very diverse and, moreover, the results are not biased by regional characteristics.
Vaccinated patients responded better to cancer treatment
A subset of 373 affected people had been vaccinated with the Chinese Covid SinoVac vaccine. “Surprisingly, they responded significantly better to anti-PD-1 therapy than unvaccinated patients,” says Prof. Dr. Christian Kurts, Director of IMMEI and member of the Life & Health Transdisciplinary Research Area and Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSensation. “Plus, they haven’t had any serious side effects more often.” Researchers cannot say why the treatment was more effective after vaccination. “We assume that vaccination activates some immune cells, which then attack the tumor,” says Professor Qi Mei of Shanxi University Hospital. “We will now explore this hypothesis in more detail.”
Nasopharyngeal cancer is quite rare in this country. In southern China and other Southeast Asian countries, however, the disease is widespread. One of the alleged reasons for this is the frequent use of air conditioning in hot and humid regions. Nutritional factors also appear to play an important role. In Taiwan, nasopharyngeal cancer is now considered a leading cause of death among young men.
Participating institutions and funding
In addition to the University of Bonn and the University Hospital, Shanxi Medical University and Tongji Medical College were involved in the work. The researchers also collaborated with numerous clinics across China. The study was funded by the Sino-German Center for Research Promotion (SGC), the DFG ImmunoSensation² Center of Excellence and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
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